The blog about various sorts of all things bullshit that may be of interest to you...
...or not.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Why You Shouldn't Give Two Shits About "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D"

In 1974, writer/director Tobe Hooper crafted a genre classic with the original (and still best) "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The film was an uncompromising vision of horror, done in a startlingly realistic fashion that made it seem almost like a documentary. It was disturbing and really got under your skin, which is what made it such an effective horror film; so much so that years later we'd get hordes of sequels, remakes, prequels, immitators, comic books, action figures, and a following that continues to stay strong almost FORTY years later, and a slasher/horror icon in Leatherface that remains one of the most frightening horror antagonists in the history of the genre.

Here we are now, going into 2013, and we've got a new "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" flick on the way. While the following films (which included two sequels, a quasi-remake with Matthew McConaughey, a straight up shitty remake which made a shit-load of money, and a shittier prequel to said remake) varied on degrees of quality (ranging from "not bad" to "please fucking shoot me in the face"), it nevertheless hasn't stopped the fact that there's a new one coming, in 3D no less too. The real question is, do we really need a new one at all?

No, we really fucking don't thank you very much.

Maybe I'm just getting soft at my old age, but I'm not looking forward to seeing Leatherface chop up teenagers in lush 3D. The whole scenario of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has just gotten old and stale. Yes, we know that Leatherface and his crazy cannibal family are as looney and unpredictable as they come, but you'd think that considering the last good TCM flick was "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" from the mid-80s that film executives would know when to quit. Unlike other slasher franchises like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th", which are meant to be both fun and scary at the same time, the TCM flicks have always been set apart from them because they're usually relentlessly terrifying with little to no pitch black humor that the aforementioned franchises have in spades. In this new horror world that is filled with all the "Saw" and "Hostel"-type flicks of the world, the only thing that filmmakers could do to continue setting the franchise apart from its bretheren is to up the ante in terms of blood, guts, and relentless nastiness...and I personally just don't give a shit anymore about that kind of stuff because it's nothing TCM hasn't done to death as it is already.

So please, for fuck's sake, let the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise just die. Even if Tobe Hooper himself came back and decided to direct another flick, I wouldn't be all that interested. When I watch a horror movie, and I watch a lot of them mind you, I hope and pray to see something done a little differently compared to what all I've seen already. After you've seen it all for years within this genre, all you can hope and wish for is something new to come along and kick the shit out of you, while being able to get some great enjoyment out of it as well in the process. You're not going to get that out of TCM 3D, and you know that as well as I do without even having to watch it.

Let TCM die already, it's as beaten to shit as the "Halloween" franchise, and when something gets that overdone, it does none of us any good.